Trusting the System

• Author: Shaunna Mireau
• Date: January 20, 2015

By now, you have probably read that the Alberta Courts public facing judgments database is no longer an active search page, and instead redirects seekers to CanLII.

Bill Clinton is attributed with saying “The price of doing the same old thing is far higher than the price of change.” Jack Welch advised, “Change before you have to.” Some other very clever person came up with, “People do not resist change. They resist being changed.”

My opinion on people resisting being changed is that there is far less resistance when there is trust. Trust that the change is not a change in philosophy, but rather a change in process. The philosophy of providing publicly accessible court decisions from all levels of court in Alberta has not changed. CanLII is committed to providing free access to the law including court decisions.

One thing that must change is links back to the Alberta Court Judgments Database. While it would have been lovely to have some notice about this change before it happened, that ship has sailed. Now we all just have...